South Florida

Sunrise resident Peggy Johannsen is grieving for her niece, who died unexpectedly last month. Her father also recently passed away. On top of expenses from two funerals, she also has a looming February mortgage payment.

Turns out Kathy Ann Paul – aka Sweet Hand Kathy – is as capable a DJ as she is a baker.

Right now, when you walk into her Miami Gardens restaurant – called, of course, Sweet Hand Kathy – you’re likely to be regaled with “parang,” a festive blend of music like Trinidadian calypso and Venezuelan gaita. That’s because parang season means Christmas season in Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean island country where Paul grew up.

Last Sunday, Broward attorney and GOP State Committeeman Richard DeNapoli got a call from an employee at Avis Rent-A-Car in the Fort Lauderdale airport. Someone had found a lone provisional ballot box, sealed by the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office. It was sitting, unsupervised, in the back of a returned rental car.

A U.S. Navy hospital ship leaves Norfolk, Virginia, Thursday on a mission that means a lot to people here in South Florida. It hopes to help bring relief to the worst migrant refugee crisis in modern South American history.

The last thing senior paralegal Karen Leicht ever imagined was that she would serve three years in prison for a felony charge.

“It is a huge skeleton in the closet,” Leicht said after speaking on a panel organized by the Greater Miami Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Miami branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a group of public defenders at the Palmetto Bay public library on Sunday.

Hundreds of artists, activists and community stakeholders across South Florida gathered in Bayfront Park on Saturday to urge politicians to make Miami more "climate resilient," or improving the ability to prevent, withstand, respond to and recover from sea level rise and climate change.

Critics joke that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro blames the U.S. – especially his Venezuelan foes living in the U.S. – whenever he stubs his toe. And most of the world ignores his leftist scapegoating.

But this month the world is wondering, cautiously, if Maduro might have a case, at least when it comes to some Venezuelans residing here.

The Everglades Foundation is kicking off a campaign to include the Everglades Reservoir in this year’s federal Water Resources Development Act bill. The reservoir is designed to move water away from Lake Okeechobee and reduce the spread of the discharge causing the toxic algae blooms on both coasts. The announcement comes days after Governor Rick Scott declared a State of Emergency as a result of the toxic algae blooms. Dr. Steven Davis is the chief ecologist at the Everglades Foundation. He joined Sundial to discuss the dangers of toxic algae.

A wheelchair or mobile disability doesn’t have to keep people from enjoying water sports at Boynton Beach - now everyone of all abilities can launch kayaks off the dock at Harvey E. Oyer Jr. Park.

The City celebrated a new accessible EZ Kayak Launch, paid for with the help of a $28,500 Florida Department of Environmental Protection grant applied for in 2015. The total cost of the kayak launch was over $58,000.